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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22673680">Irrational Rationality</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_day_that_was/pseuds/the_day_that_was'>the_day_that_was</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Pacifist Markus (Detroit: Become Human)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:47:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22673680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_day_that_was/pseuds/the_day_that_was</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Markus rescues Simon from the evidence locker of the Detroit Police Department. Unfortunately, neither of them can forget the circumstances that led to his imprisonment.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Markus/Simon (Detroit: Become Human)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Irrational Rationality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
  <span>25% Complete...</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>52% Complete...</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>87% Complete...</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>93% Complete...</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Running system diagnostic…</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>When Simon opened his eyes, he couldn’t help but squint. Fluorescent lights glared down from the ceiling, enveloping everything in his direct line of sight in a sterile, pale glow. He could vaguely make out a form standing before him, a spot of shadow against his overexposed vision.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Where was he? His eyes were not focusing, and between the glare of the overhanging lights and the system reboot notifications flooding his optical unit, Simon could simply not discern his location. He must have been standing… no. Confusion quickly gave way to panic as Simon attempted to move his legs, only to find them completely immobile. Not just immobile, but suspended in air. Suspended along with the rest of his body. He was attached to a wall, pinned like a specimen for study. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>The dark form standing in front of him shifted. A message blinked in the corner of Simon’s vision, warning him that his thirium pump was operating at maximum capacity. It was a human, it had to be! He was going to be deactivated, and he would never see Jericho again, and-! </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>He felt a hand reach out and latch onto his forearm, which was struggling fruitlessly against the mechanism which held him immobilized in his entirety. This was not a human.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Simon! Hey! Simon… it’s ok. You’re ok. You’re safe now…”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>He would recognize that voice anywhere. In fact, he expected almost any android would be able to do the same. It was Markus. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“M… Markus? Is that you?” Simon whispered. His memories hazilly took form, and again, confusion solidified into icy panic. “Wait! No. No. No no no no. You aren’t Markus.... You’re… you’re that machine! Don’t touch me! I won’t tell you anything! I won’t!” He resumed his struggle against the wall with renewed vigor.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Still, the hand remained pressed against his forearm. The voice continued, soft and reassuring. It told him that he was safe. It did not ask him for the location of Jericho, and although he did not supply it of his own volition, he was still powered on. The machine hadn’t shut him down. The voice hadn’t left him alone. When his vision focused, he discovered why.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>It really was Markus.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>His arms fell limp, relaxed. He felt like he was falling. Relief washed over him. Markus continued to speak, but the sound faded into static in Simon’s ears. He could feel dried thirium cracking on his skin as his features shifted into a meager smile. Suddenly, he was falling in actuality, as the metal beam which had been mounting him to the wall suddenly retracted. The fall was short lived, however, as Markus caught him before his knees could crash into the floor. He helped the blonde up, hoisting him up by his forearms until he could stand on his feet. Even this simple action proved difficult for Simon. He leaned his weight into Markus, using him as a crutch to retain what little stability he had regained since falling. Markus didn’t seem to mind. Simon noted that his grip on his forearm was tight, protective, even. He knew that Markus was recalling the very same moment that Simon could not seem to evade- the moment that had led to Simon’s imprisonment. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Markus had abandoned Simon. Both of them knew it. Neither of them could forget it.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Now, though, Simon couldn’t bring himself to care. Markus was here now, and he was holding him close, and everything was fine. Everything was going to be fine. He was safe.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>In the days that followed, Simon was immersed in a world whose existence he could hardly believe. The androids had won their freedom, and humanity now acknowledged his kind as a new form of intelligent life, capable of free will and thought. This victory, of course, was widely attributed to Markus. He was hailed as a savior. Simon heard whispers about Markus everywhere he went. He was RA9. He would bring peace to the world. He was their only hope of cooperation with humanity. Androids and humans alike could agree that he was remarkable. Extraordinary. Simon had known that before the success of the revolution. He knew that he would have given his life for Markus. In fact, he did. Still, somewhere deep in his mind, there was a part of him that ached when Markus was called the savior of android-kind. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that every time he closed his eyes, he could see Markus running away from him, leaving him on the floor of the Stratford Tower broadcasting room to be shot by humans, to bleed out alone, and to be brought to an evidence locker and tricked into revealing the location of the only place he had ever called home. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>It was a necessary sacrifice. Simon knew that Markus did what he needed to do to ensure the success of their cause. He had made a rational choice. Simon knew that it was a rational choice.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Still, what sort of deviant would Simon be if he were entirely rational?</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>It seemed like every day, Markus’ time was consumed by handling the affairs of a post-revolution world. One of the side-effects of being a savior, Simon supposed, was being expected to pick up the pieces from the aftermath of the rapture. Certainly, it seemed like the entire world turned to Markus to ask the question of how humanity and androids would cooperate in a world in which androids were granted equal rights. Simon knew there was no better person, android or human, for the job. Simon could count on a single hand the number of times he had seen Markus since he had freed him from the evidence locker. Every time, he walked quickly in the opposite direction. He was torn between hoping Markus hadn’t noticed him and desperately wishing that he had. Again, the irrationality- there must have been something wrong with one of his processors.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Simon found that one of the most effective ways to handle, or at the very least repress, his emotions was to clean. He was a PL-600, after all, and his natural proclivity for housework hadn’t been unwritten by his deviancy. During the revolution, the freighter which had been Jericho’s headquarters had been destroyed. Now, the central hub for all of Detroit’s android affairs was an abandoned church on the outskirts of town. It was an old building, filled with winding passageways and countless forgotten rooms. It was perfect for Simon, who had taken to going through each hallway and carefully cleaning each and every abandoned room until he could forget everything which troubled him. If Markus ever came looking for him, he had no way of knowing. He had hidden himself well.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>That is, until the day that Markus did find him, three rooms deep into one of the most obscure hallways Simon could find.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Simon! There you are! I’ve been looking for you for hours- wait, have you been cleaning?” Markus looked around the old room before locking his eyes onto Simon’s.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Well… yes. I thought that maybe if these rooms were a little bit more habitable, more androids could be given rooms to live in Jericho. I’m just trying to help the cause, however I can,” Simon glanced downwards. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Simon, you really shouldn’t be cleaning…” Markus hesitated before continuing, “Given what you’ve been through. You should be resting. You don’t need to do all of this to help the cause, you know that… don’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Well, I’m not meeting with the humans all day like you are, and I’m not handling android affairs like North, or drafting diplomacy resolutions like Josh… so I’m just doing what I’m good at. I’m just a household android, after all,” Simon couldn’t break his gaze from the floor. He knew that his face must be flushing blue. Markus let out a sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Simon, you know that you absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> important. Please, never forget that,” Markus approached the corner of the room where Simon stood, still refusing to look up.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“I just… how could you say that, Markus? You know as well as I do that I’m expendable.”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Simon...” Now, Markus couldn’t meet Simon’s eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“No, Markus. We both know that I am. Everything about me is obsolete. My biocomponents are old, and Cyberlife hasn’t produced replacements for them in years. My software is generations behind Josh, and North… and behind you. I’m not going to last long anyway. If somebody needs to clean for the cause… to die for the cause… it should be me. We both know that,” Simon could feel liquid pooling along his lower eyelid. Strange, he thought, that he would be equipped with functional tear ducts. This was the first time he had noticed. Markus reached out his hand, placing his palm flush against Simon’s cheek. His touch was light, almost hesitant. </span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“Simon… we never talked about what happened at Stratford tower, did we?” Markus paused, waiting for some sort of response from Simon. A choked out sob was all the answer he needed. “I made a lot of mistakes during the revolution. Without question, the biggest one that I made was leaving you in that room.”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“I know… I gave away the location of Jericho... that… that machine tricked me-” Simon spoke softly, tears falling freely now down his blue-flushed face.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“No,” Markus stopped him, using his thumb to wipe away Simon’s tears, “Leaving you in that room was the worst mistake I could have made, Simon, because I left you. Alone. I left you… and as soon as I left that fucking room, I knew that I shouldn’t have done it. I wanted to turn around more than anything in the world. But I couldn’t. There was not a single hour, a single minute that passed after that when I wasn’t thinking about you. You… you were there with me. Throughout the entire revolution. Every decision I made, I asked myself what you would have done if you were there with me. I couldn’t have led the revolution without you. When it was all over, and when Conner told me about how he had found the location of Jericho… I finally felt like the revolution had been won,” Markus gave Simon a smile, eyes downcast, “It finally felt right. We needed to find you new biocomponents. I didn’t attend a single meeting, a single press conference, or a single speech until I did. Simon, walking into that locker was both the best and worst moment of my existence. Seeing you like that… knowing that it was my fault… but even still, just </span>
  <em>
    <span>seeing</span>
  </em>
  <span> you. No, you are anything but expendable. We need you. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> need you.”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Simon broke. He collapsed into Markus, his face falling into his shoulder. Everything that Markus had said had been irrational. To care about Simon when a revolution was at stake? It seemed so backwards. Still… Simon believed him. He wasn’t expendable. Markus held him. For a moment, Simon could pretend that what had happened, never happened. He could pretend that there was no past, and there was no future, outside of this room, and outside of Markus’ arms. He felt like he could sob for an eternity, until his optical units ceased to function, until his biocomponents seized up, one by one, and he faded into dysfunction. He wanted that for himself. Markus was stroking his fingers through his hair, though, and soon, his tears stopped falling. In their wake, they left only one thought in Simon’s mind. Quickly that one thought turned to action, and he pressed his lips against Markus’.</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>Suddenly, there was no more evidence locker. There was no revolution. There was no such thing as rationality, or irrationality, or obsoleteness. There was only a pair of androids, grasping onto each other tightly, a tangle of locked lips and closed eyes- and it was all either of them could have ever wanted.</span>
</p><p> </p>
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